[UPDATED] State, Local Official? Drink, Drive, Get Off Scot-Free.

This is not justice.

Bexar County Commissioner Kevin Wolff pleaded no contest Wednesday to the driving while intoxicated charge that has hung over him since last summer, accepting a year’s probation and a breath monitor when he gets behind the wheel for the next six months.
. . .
Wearing only a T-shirt and boxer shorts, Wolff was arrested July 31 after twice rear-ending a car in a Whataburger drive-thru line around 3 a.m. on San Pedro Avenue. He has said he drank vodka with peach tea cocktails, then took three prescription drugs, including the sleep aid Ambien, the latter possibly in an accidental double dose.

In exchange for the plea, the district attorney’s office agreed to lessen the charge from a Class A misdemeanor, which carries a maximum fine of $2,000, to a Class B misdemeanor. County Court-at-law No. 4 Judge Jason Garrahan issued a fine of $650 and a 180-day jail term, probated for a year.

In Williamson County, Texas, there’s no way you’d get away with a little probation and briefly lost license. Lordy, no. I know from experience (personal and others’) WilCo DAs will refuse to dismiss charges even if you’re below the legal limit, have prescriptions for the medications on your person and the cops lack any further evidence. You don’t even have to damage anything or hurt anyone. They know that by dragging out your case and making you sweat the idea of jail, you’ll likely plea out at a lesser charge (which is ridiculous because, essentially, they’re asking you to commit perjury in copping to a crime you didn’t commit just to get out of their system). Add in the cost of going to trial and the prosecutors know they hold the cards. They know you’ll more than likely just settle for some bullshit conviction to get it over with than go through the financial, emotional and time-eating turmoil of pointing out their asshole-ness, lack of ethics and irresponsibility in a trial. So, they win. Over and over again, they win.

Unless you threaten to take it to trial. They don’t want to do that because they know they’ll lose. They depend on defendants’ ignorance of the system and the game the officials — cops, judges, prosecutors, bail bondsmen, et al. — are playing with their lives.

All of that is obviated, however, if you have a name, income, rank or some other (non-)mitigating factor!

He said after his arrest that he didn’t remember refusing a breath test at the accident scene. Wolff was charged with the more severe misdemeanor because his blood alcohol content exceeded .15 percent, according to a blood draw performed after the arrest, officials have said.
. . .
As he waited, Wolff repeated that he “didn’t want to be treated any differently” from others throughout the process, and how he regretted that it happened in the first place.

This is not justice. Justice doesn’t differ so widely between counties, between individuals with different names and job titles when the offenses are similar.

Those who have never been touched by our criminal “justice” system will never know just how completely we’ve screwed the pooch in our supposed searches for truth and justice.

1 thought on “[UPDATED] State, Local Official? Drink, Drive, Get Off Scot-Free.”

How is he not guilty of both a DUI and a DWI considering he was both very fucking drunk and under the influence of three prescription drugs? How is he not sitting in jail? Why is he not attending court-mandated AA and NA meetings for 18 months? Why is he not attending a MADD-sponsored victim’s impact panel? Why is he not taking a fucking alcohol and drug abuse awareness classes?

Every other person who is even accused of either a DUI or a DWI (you don’t have to be convicted of those charges, just accused), will be required by the courts to do one or all of those things. Justice is blind my asshole.